In today's Mass, we come across a reading which has perplexed many a good Catholic, in that it speaks of the extermination of an entire people, the Amalekites. And when we look at this passage, at first, of course we buckle, right? How could the God who has now commanded us to love our enemy, have commanded Saul the king, through his prophet Samuel, to destroy the Amalekites? And it does ring bitter in our logical minds.
However, if we look at this passage within a context, we will see that in ancient Israel, anything that caused his people to sin was to be dealt with, and dealt with decisively, without any compromise. And so, when Saul disobeys God and spares some of the cattle, some of the people, and the king of the Amalekites, it is as if he is simultaneously saying to God that he will get rid of some sin, but not all sin. And that can lead to our demise, to our own destruction.
So more than a lesson on extermination, this passage speaks to us about playing around with our old ways, with our lives of sin, which we have now left behind, right? It is like a married man who continues to live like a single man, who, while he is married to his wife, befriends a few other ladies. And when confronted with that—and I hear it all the time in confession, for example—he says, “But it’s love,” and we try to justify it. “I’ve been married to my wife for so many years, but this one, there’s something different,” and we try to play around with sin.
We disobey the command of the Lord to remain faithful, for example, in marriage, but not only in marriage—in consecrated life as religious, as priests, as Franciscan friars. And so, in today’s Gospel, we have another reiteration of that when Jesus says that no one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.
In other words, God has given us a new life in Christ and is continually instructing us to leave the old behind, to leave our sinful ways behind. And this is what conversion is. True conversion is when I go to confession and I am truly remorseful, and I promise that, with the help of God’s grace, I will try not to commit the same sin again. In other words, I am leaving it behind. I cannot keep it around. I cannot allow it to linger in my soul like an adulterous relationship, because if you let it linger, it will destroy everything.
God has been trying to give you all the blessings, all the graces, and sometimes it is not easy to let go of what we think might be justifiably approved in our lives. Saul thought that keeping the king around, and a few of the cattle, and a few of the people, would be approved by God. And it was not, because God was making a metaphor of that situation: that when it comes to sin, you want to get rid of all of it. The Lord wants to get rid of all our sins, but we have to cooperate with him.
And so, my brothers and sisters, let us ask the Lord to give us the grace to truly allow him to create a new heart within us, which ploughs straight ahead without looking back—just like Lot’s wife was asked not to look back at Sodom and Gomorrah, for she would turn into a pillar of salt. These are all reminders to us that we need to let go of the life of sin and embrace all the more the life of grace and the life of virtue, out of love for the Lord and for all that is good and holy.
May our Blessed Mother intercede for you and pour down upon you, from Almighty God, his most special blessings, strength, and grace. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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